Tonight, members of the community can stand up for those who can no longer stand up for themselves.
The Sisters In Spirit Walk/Vigil will be held tonight beginning at 5 p.m. at the Athabasca United Church. The event will honour and remember aboriginal women who are missing and/or have been murdered.
Despite the name, it won’t (or at least, shouldn’t) just be women walking and remembering. Organizers invite men, aboriginals and non-aboriginals to take part and add their voices and support to the cause.
The walk will traverse the town before heading to the riverbank for a prayer. After that will be a chili and bannock supper followed by a sacred circle for people to share their stories.
And unfortunately, such stories are plentiful.
Violence against Aboriginal women is an ongoing and disturbingly prevalent issue.
According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), female aboriginals account for approximately 10 per cent of female homicides in the country, despite making up only three per cent of the national population of women.
Aboriginal women in Canada report rates of violence 3.5 times higher than non-aboriginal women, and are five times more likely to die as a result of it.
Between 2000 and 2008, NWAC identified 153 cases of murder and another 115 women who went missing. 16 per cent of those cases were in Alberta; of the provinces, only British Columbia accounted for more of the total.
This horrible trend must stop, and shedding light on the issue and talking about it is one way to begin that process.
Those who take part in tonight’s walk and vigil will, in doing so, show their support for women who were robbed of their lives and stolen from their loved ones far too soon.
Violence should never be met with silence. And those who can’t demand justice for themselves need us to take up the call.
